You might think it a waste of money to study whether people who live near foreclosed homes have high blood pressure.

Perhaps you're thinking they probably live in poor neighborhoods with lousy access to medical care, so of course they're more likely to have high blood pressure.

It isn't like a foreclosed house has cooties, you reason: It's that people in those neighborhoods don't have the means to take care of their health.

Well, that line of thinking turns out to be wrong.

Researchers looked at 1,740 people who lived predominately in middle-class suburban homes. Most were white, and 53 percent were women.

Their study revealed that for every foreclosed property within 100 meters of participants' homes, their top blood pressure number rose 1.7 points. (The top number is the systolic number, which is supposed to be 120 or less.)

Within that broader finding were some interesting details. Foreclosed homes that were further away had little association with higher blood pressure. And only homes that were owned by lenders - and typically sat vacant for some period of time - were linked to a jump. (Homes that were purchased by third parties and then occupied had no impact.)

So living near a foreclosed property, in an of itself, contributes to a risk for elevated blood pressure, the researchers concluded.

But if houses don't have cooties, what's going on?

"The increases in blood pressure observed could be due in part to unhealthy stress from residents' perceptions that their own properties are less valuable, their streets less attractive or safe, and their neighborhood less stable," said Mariana Arcaya of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Students, and the lead author.

"Safety could also be a concern that affects their ability to exercise in these neighborhoods," she said.

Because the study involved only suburban neighborhoods, the researchers recommended a similar examination be made of urban and rural neighbhoods.

The study was funded in part by the Prnceton-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.